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News | Globeinvestor | Technology | Vehicles | Careers |
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The Globe and Mail's Globe Investor section (which replaced Net Worth) is dedicated to giving you what you need to manage your personal finances successfully. Globe Investor appears every Saturday in The Globe and Mail and on globeinvestor.com. View our archive of past Globe Investor issues.
THE FRONT PAGE
Master your RRSP
Why let someone else administer your RRSP when it's cheaper to do it yourself? Starting a self-directed RRSP is an important step to controlling your financial destiny.
By ROB CARRICK
It's time to get selfish with your RRSP. You've done enough for the banks and mutual fund companies out there by putting your registered retirement savings plan contributions in their hands every year. What you need now is a self-directed RRSP.
Ten RRSP mistakes we all make
We tend to think of these plans as being simply a tax break, they're not.
By DIANE MALEY
Of the hundreds of billions of dollars Canadians have socked away in registered retirement savings plans, countless millions are lying around untended, often in unsuitable investments and with insufficient thought about how these investments fit into a larger financial strategy.
Shift publisher likes technology
Andrew Heintzman sticks to a small number of stocks in his portfolio.
By TAMSEN TILLSON
Shift Magazine, once an arty literary tome staffed by cash-starved volunteers, became a Canadian publishing success story only after it decided to focus on the growing fascination with new technology.
Job loss changes family's fortunes
Couple gets high marks for skillful handling of income drop. 'They have learned to live within their means,' our expert says.
By ANGELA BARNES
It's a situation that many families can relate to. A spouse loses his job and the whole family's financial situation changes in an instant.It happened to Sheryl Lang and Rodger Clayton (not their real names). Rodger's contract with a non-profit organization wasn't renewed in the early 1990s. It took 14 months and a lot of searching for him to land a part-time position at less than a third of his previous income. It was the first of what was to be a number of part-time positions he would hold, often two at a time.
Asset allocation key to investing success
How you divide up your portfolio between stocks, bonds and cash will have a big impact on returns.
By CAROLYN LEITCH
Investors are always obsessing about something. This season's toxic cocktail of market worry includes fears of an overheating economy and rising interest rates, and an eerie harmony in the chanting of pundits about the terrifying valuations of technology stocks.
NET WORTH - BEST BUYS
A weekly scorecard of some of the lowest and highest rates and yields across Canada. The survey of mortgage, GICs and car loans - taken from a sample of companies by Cannex Financial Exchanges - covers posted rates only so consumers may be able to haggle for a better deal at some financial institutions.
When saving, steady and boring is the way to go, Rob Carrick says
By ROB CARRICK
Nothing says futility like chasing after hot-performing mutual funds.Buy last year's star fund and it turns into a black hole in your portfolio. Ignore a fund with a blighted history and suddenly it's the year's new sensation.
Take a pass on Corel
By MATHEW INGRAM
Although it has descended from December's truly ridiculous levels of $60 or so, Corel Corp. continues to hover around $30, thanks to the market's love affair with anything related to the Linux operating system. That's 10 times what the Ottawa-based company traded for last year, and three times what it sold for as recently as November. In other words, Corel's stock still has only a glancing relationship with reality.
Gail Vaz-Oxlade tells you how to teach your teens about credit.
By GAIL VAZ-OXLADE
Imagine that you've never had a full-time job, that you aren't currently working, and that you walk into a bank and ask for a credit card. Imagine how hard they laugh! You explain how good a customer you could be with just the opportunity to get into debt. They laugh even harder.
Borrowing to top up your RRSP is not for everyone, Tim Cestnick says
By TIM CESTNICK
Last week I had the chance to meet with Paul and his son Greg. Greg is an old high-school friend, and when I think back to those days, one thought stands out.
Options are a good way to hedge your investments, Gordon Powers says.
By GORDON POWERS
Despite the market's record-setting pace and the high-tech wealth effect that's washing over us here in suburban Ottawa, many of the investors I talk to are actually quite nervous. Caught in the headlights of the Nasdaq index's incredible surge, they're suddenly finding themselves playing a never-ending game of chicken with their retirement dollars.
Merger mania is fuelling stock markets, Jeffrey Rubin says.
By JEFFREY RUBIN
It's the greatest merger cycle in history, not earnings, that is driving North American stock markets.Today's flow of deals dwarfs all past precedents, with markets bestowing GDP-like capitalizations on its newly-minted global behemoths. The firms involved in the 10 largest merger-and-acquisition deals in the United States last year accounted for a quarter of the entire annual gains of the Standard # Poor's 500, roughly four times their weight in the index. And two-thirds of the rise in the S#P 500 last year came from three of its most merger-intensive sectors: software, broadcasting and communications.
STARS & DOGS
A selection of this week's winners and losers
Adviser checklist will make you smarter
By ROB CARRICK
There's a Web site you should know about if you're off to see your investment adviser any time soon about mutual funds for your registered retirement savings plan.
Asked & Answered
Each week we'll answer readers' questions on any personal finance topic. Question: Having recently bought a couple of U.S. stocks, I was charged a withholding tax on the quarterly dividends. How can I recoup this money? Answer: The withholding tax can be anywhere from 5 to 30 per cent, depending on the type of U.S. income. The rate for dividends is 15 per cent. But there are rules in place to make sure you don't get taxed once in the United States and again in Canada on the same income. So claim a foreign tax credit on your Canadian tax form for any U.S. or other foreign taxes paid.
Investment questions? Submit them to Net Worth's Asked & Answered column.
Desjardins launches three ethical funds
Desjardins Trust Inc. has launched three mutual funds marketed at investors concerned about the social impact of their investments. In a press release, the company said the three are named Desjardins Ethical Balanced fund, Ethical Income fund and Ethical North American fund. Desjardins said the ethical guidelines of the funds prohibit companies that receive income from the tobacco industry, the military infrastructure, or nuclear energy. The ethical funds line is managed by the Credit Unions of Canada's Credential Group subsidiary, with which it entered into a partnership agreement in November. The Desjardins Ethical Balanced fund and Ethical Income fund are both fully registered savings plan eligible; the Desjardins Ethical North American Fund is eligible for up to 20 per cent of the RRSP assets or 100 per cent of a registered education savings plan.
Trimark adds 10 segregated funds
Trimark Financial Corp. of Toronto has added 10 new segregated funds to its lineup, bringing the total to 23. Three of them -- Trimark Seg Fund, Trimark Canadian Seg Fund and Trimark Income Growth Seg Fund -- are sold with a front-end load. Other new seg funds sold with an optional load are Trimark International Companies Seg Fund; Trimark U.S. Companies Seg Fund; Trimark RSP Equity Seg Fund; Trimark Enterprise Seg Fund; Trimark Enterprise Small Cap Seg Fund; Trimark Global Balanced Seg Fund and Trimark Global High Yield Bond Seg Fund.
AGF unveils RRSP eligible value fund
AGF Management Ltd. of Toronto said it has launched a version of its $3.7-billion AGF International Value Fund that will now be available for registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs). The AGF RSP International Value Fund aims to mimic the performance of the underlying mutual funds.
Strategic Value unveils four foreign funds
Strategic Value Corp. has launched four new foreign funds that are eligible for registered retirement savings plans (RRSP). The Toronto-based mutual fund company said the new funds are: O'Donnell World Equity RSP; O'Donnell U.S. Mid-Cap RSP; Strategic Value Europe RSP and Strategic Value World Balanced RSP. The new funds aim to match the performance of the company's existing international funds.
